The Missing Piece
by StoryDiva
Summary: Set after "Doing the Math". Joan POV, reacting to her father's big secret and her life in general. Ficlet. Completed.


**Title: **My Missing Piece 

**Author:** storydivagirl [at] hotmail.com 

**For:** word # 60 challenge at 15minuteficlets at livejournal. 

**A/N: **Joan POV set after "do the math"--feedback always appreciated, but not expected. 

**_Word # 60: Father_**

I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought my father would see his brother and they would hug and things would be okay. Maybe not right away, but eventually-and maybe my father wouldn't look so sad. I thought for sure that my father would react the way that I do after a big fight with Kevin or Luke. He's always going on about how alike the two of us are, something about peas in a pod, and I've been known to write my siblings off in anger. It's a cycle I have. I go off, stay mad for likeever, and then finally forget about the whole thing. Because they're my brothers and, whether I want to admit it or not, they're a part of my life. A necessary part like school and dentist visits. 

God said it's okay. That my father has his missing piece nowwhatever _that _means. But it freaks me out a bit when I think about it. It scares me that my father is capable of harboring a grudge like that against his brother, someone who wasn't really responsible for any of my father's anger, but has found himself receiving the brunt of it anyway. _For twenty years. _ That's more than my lifetime. My father has been so angry with this man, my uncle, for so long that he probably doesn't know how to do anything else. 

I wonder if one of these days I'm going to do something (another incident like tonight's _Jerry Springer_ surprise) that makes him cut me off, makes him stop loving me and that scares me because my dad means everything to me. Don't get me wrong. I love my mother and even my brothers, of course, but my dad-he listens to me. He gives me my space, but is still there with a hug when I need it. My dad knows how to make me smile when it seems impossible, even when he's upset himself. My dad is the best person I know in the world and the thought of him hating me? Well, that won't happen. 

Unless of course, it does. Then what do I do? 

I snuggle in closer to my blanket and stare up at the ceiling. Thoughts run through my head, emotions overwhelm me-varying from weirded out to anger at being lied to all my life-and my stomach feels like someone is drilling at it from the inside out. I try to close my eyes and force sleep upon myself, but I keep flashing on the look on my father's face, how he looked at my uncle like he was nothing but a nightmare come to life. 

Is that what growing up does to a person? Hardens them, stops them from recalling the fun times with their family? Because I get so mad at Kevin sometimes. He pisses me off and gets all annoying with the I'm-the-big-brother-bow-before-me stuff, but when we nearly lost him? When I thought that I might never get the chance to make fun of his girlfriends or come to him when some guy bothered me and I wanted him to offer to beat them upI thought I would wither away, like a part of me would be missing if Kevin died. 

Does my father feel that way? If so, why won't he talk to my uncle? Why is he waiting to play his missing piece? 

There are so many questions and none of it makes sense. I can just hear _oh-omniscient-one _offering up one of his nonsensical responses: _Joan, there are many paths and your father is taking the longer one. _So many questionsand that's how I feel a lot of the time anymore. All these things God has me doing, all the people I'm coming into contact with. Sometimes I catch myself and think this is truly insane, that it doesn't make any sense-what if I stopped? But there are people in my life now-Adam and Grace to name a few-who wouldn't have been without these "missions from God." And then I think I really would have been like my dad. Missing a piece. 

And then I think that maybe I was. Missing a piece, I mean. Before, not so much now. Maybe God chose me because I didn't really appreciate anything and thought that the only thing that mattered was getting through high school virtually unknown. Without this missing piece I would be a boring, trite type of girl who never acted thankful for the things she had or the brothers that annoyed her or the parents that pestered her about everything. 

And that would suck. 

_{fin}_


End file.
